


Branded

by robindrake93



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Branding, First Kiss, M/M, One Shot, POV Third Person, Soulmates, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26907619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robindrake93/pseuds/robindrake93
Summary: Percy's handprints are brands all over Luke's body.
Relationships: Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832509
Comments: 3
Kudos: 116





	Branded

**Author's Note:**

> Another one for Bad Things Happen bingo! I've managed to fill 8 prompts so far (with this being the 9th). This wasn't my original idea for branding so I'll be doing a second one with branding and another prompt together. But this idea seized me and, well, I had to write it down. 
> 
> Suspend your disbelief for a moment and pretend like Percy's skin glows the same as Tyson's does when he's thrusting his hands into lava because that's more or less what happens.
> 
> If you don't like the font color, click "Hide Creator's Style" at the top and it'll revert to black.
> 
> Do not reupload/repost my fics.

The telkhines told Luke what happened as they hauled themselves out of the sea and onto the Princess Andromeda. Their fur was waterproof but the water was treacherous at the moment as the volcano erupted. “The sea god spawn did it.” 

Percy always had a way of showing up in Luke’s business. He supposed that the boy couldn’t help it. They were bound together by Fate, afterall. Luke looked to the sky clouded by ash and watched flaming rocks rocket to the ocean waters. Then he saw something that looked human and his heart lurched the way it always did when he saw Percy. “Get closer!” 

It was a suicidal order because so much could go wrong. Their yacht could be destroyed by the debris or the lava that was rushing toward the choppy water. They could die of smoke inhalation or some of that debris could hurt them. Or Typhon could wake fully...no matter what Kronos said, Luke didn’t think that they could control the monster. He was the most powerful son of Gaea and Tartarus to ever live. 

But Luke needed to find Percy. The yacht was brought closer to the volcano and to the spot that Percy fell. Luke ordered the ship to halt. Then he climbed up onto the railing and dove down. It was five stories to the cold ocean waters. Being a demigod was the only thing that saved him from breaking his arms and snapping his neck. Luke had to fight against his instinct to breathe from the shock of cold water. 

Finding Percy in the ocean was startlingly easy. The boy glowed orange hot like the lava that slid down the side of the volcano. He was a glowing spark that tantalized as he sank into the depths. Luke was reminded of sirens luring their prey to the depths even as his mind went _what the fuck._

Luke dove down, down, enough that his lungs burned and his ears popped. He saw shapes in the water but ignored them, kicking for the sinking boy. Touching Percy was like touching fire. He gripped Percy’s wrist and pulled him back to the surface. It felt like the ocean was fighting him but Luke managed. 

When they broke the surface, Luke gasped in air. The first few breaths hurt the same as going without had. He looked for the ship, saw that it was more or less where he’d left it. 

Percy breathed normally. Of course he did. Just because he couldn’t drown, though, didn’t mean that he didn’t need medical help. Percy pawed at Luke, his hot hands burning right through Luke’s clothes. His hip, his ribs, his chest. His left hand curled around Luke’s bicep and his right cupped Luke’s cheek. Percy’s nostrils flared. His eyes stayed closed. “Luke?” 

“I got you,” Luke said through gritted teeth. His face was on fire. The pain spread through his whole head and down his neck, heat radiating. His throat tightened with it. The salty water didn’t help to soothe the burns.

A wave crashed over their heads. The ocean was becoming angry.

“He’s calling me,” Percy murmured. 

Luke coughed up water. He struggled to keep them both afloat. Percy didn’t weigh much but he was still a deadweight. And it felt like something was trying to drag Percy down. “Who?” 

“Dad,” Percy managed. His breaths came in shallow. 

Luke was torn with indecision. He didn’t think nectar and ambrosia would work for this. He wasn’t even sure what Percy’s skin was doing - why was it glowing like he was made of lava? - but he knew that it was hurting him. If he let Percy go, would he ever see him again? What if Percy just sank to the bottom of the ocean and died there? Luke could barely concentrate through the emotional pain in his heart and the physical pain on his face. “Okay,” he said and let Percy go. Luke watched the light that was Percy sink down, down, until it went out. Fear seized his heart. “Take care of him!” he shouted at the sea. 

The saltwater hurt Luke’s burns but the open air hurt more when Luke flopped onto the deck of the Princess Andromeda. All of that swimming was exhausting. He lay on his back, panting, the pain agonizing enough to bring tears to his eyes. Nectar and ambrosia wouldn’t help him either; only the apples of immortality could heal Luke, but he didn’t have any and so Luke had to heal like a mortal. So that’s what he did. 

It was a slow, slow process. Several things made it worse. 

Every time his burns rubbed up against fabric or there was a change of temperature, they flared with pain. It seemed that every little thing made them act up. And he couldn’t stop training his forces so now he was getting whacked with swords on the regular by his fellow demigods. Luke told them not to go easy on him, but the ones who respected him did. He didn’t call attention to it. 

The third thing that made his healing process slower was his punishment. Luke wouldn’t tell anyone why he jumped into the ocean after Percy or why he let him go. It infuriated Kronos so much that he ordered Luke whipped. So Luke was tied to a support beam on the deck and whipped with a cat o’ nine tails until his back was a bloody mess and he was delirious with the pain. But he still wouldn’t say why he tried to rescue Percy Jackson. 

He now bore five handprints scars, branded into his skin...though most only saw two of them. After that, Luke began killing anyone who brought the subject up. He was indiscriminate; demigod and monster fell beneath Backbiter and the sword drank their blood greedily. That shut them up pretty quick...except that they now just spread rumors when Luke wasn’t around to dish out punishment. What everyone knew was that the son of the sea god had branded the general of Kronos’ army. 

Luke and Percy didn’t see each other again until Luke’s soldiers brought Percy into the underground battle arena that Antaeus ruled over. Luke was not surprised to see Percy, had picked up his scent as soon as he drew near. 

But Percy was stunned to see Luke...or rather, Luke’s face. His eyes visibly widened even from a distance and his jaw dropped. He snapped his jaw shut but the confused look that followed probably meant that he didn’t remember what happened. 

Of course not. Why would Poseidon allow Percy to remember his enemy trying to save him?

The fight was, to put it mildly, boring. Luke had no doubts that Percy would win all three. Even the fight against his half-brother. Percy didn’t let him down. “I wish to speak to our victor,” Luke announced after the battle. 

This gained murmurs from the army - from the ones who knew what happened on the Princess Andromeda - but no one dared challenge Luke. They all knew that even without Backbiter in his possession, Luke was more than capable of slaughtering them. Someone shoved Percy in Luke’s direction. 

Percy growled. He swung Riptide in the direction of the monster that pushed him but it was half hearted at best. Instead, he followed Luke into the gladiator’s entrance, which was almost completely blocked by a huge Poseidon banner. 

The gladiator’s entrance was a shadowed tunnel that was mostly dark. The only light came from beyond the banner, which was hung askew so a beam of light cut deeper than it should have. It was a dismal place, full of trophies from past kills; which meant various body parts and broken weapons. Though the army and the girls were right outside, the little niche felt private and intimate. 

Percy faced Luke, his eyes glued to the scar on Luke’s face. That wasn’t uncommon, even for Percy, but it was the wrong side of his face...the wrong scar. Now those sea glass green eyes were staring at the handprint burnt into Luke’s cheek. His hand twitched. He didn’t say or do anything for a long few moments, though it was clear what was going through his head. When he did finally raise his hand, it was with exaggerated slowness. 

Luke didn’t stop him. There was so much that he wanted to say but as always, he felt that he couldn’t. Percy may reject his way of bringing about change but the idea that Percy would reject Luke himself was too painful. So even though their Fates were tightly woven, Luke never brought it up. 

Percy’s hand fit perfectly over the print. His eyes widened again, before narrowing in concentration. “I don’t remember…” 

“You don’t have to,” Luke said, lowering his eyes. “It was nothing.” The bond between them strengthened every time they touched. The closer they were, the stronger it became. That was why it had been so easy to get close to Percy when he first came to Camp; his soul sang whenever Percy was near him. He wondered if Percy felt it too. 

“It mattered,” Percy insisted. The confusion hadn’t left his face. “If I did this to you, then it matters.” Percy’s righteous sense of justice being directed at Luke was a new thing. There had been a time before, when Percy wanted to see him dead and wasn’t shy about saying so. That had been before Luke actually died, though, and since then Percy had changed his tune. 

Luke put his hand over Percy’s, savored the contact for a moment, and gently pulled it away from his face. “Don’t worry about them.” As soon as he said it, he winced. 

“Them?!” Percy echoed. He looked down, spotted the brand on Luke’s bicep. His hand came up and he curled his fingers around the scar. It was a perfect fit. They all would be. “What did I do to you?” he hissed, anger pouring into his voice. Percy’s gaze flickered up and down Luke’s body. Suddenly, he fisted Luke’s tank top in both hands and tore it open. It was just cotton but the burst of strength was mildly impressive. 

The other three handprints came into view. 

Luke tried to hide them. Being branded on his face was bad enough but Luke had been there, done that. He couldn’t let Percy see the rest. He couldn’t ever let anyone see him without a shirt on. 

For a few heartbeats, Percy was shocked into stunned silence by what bits of Luke that he could see. “Let me see.” More forcefully, Percy said, “Luke, let me see!” And he grabbed Luke’s wrists to pry his arms away from his body. 

Luke’s torso was a mess of scars. It was a mess before he even met Percy but now it was worse. There weren't just the three handprints - at his hip, his ribs, over his heart - there were five long claw marks that stretched diagonally from Luke’s shoulder to his hip. There were clean surgical scars from when Chiron fixed the damage inside of Luke after Ladon’s attack and there was the horizontal scar across his chest from the fight with Thalia. Luke’s face warmed and he yanked his wrists from Percy’s grip. He couldn’t meet the boy’s eye and turned his back on him. And only too late remembered the whipping he’d received. 

There was silence so filled with tension you could have cut it with a knife. Luke wished he could melt into the ground and be swallowed up by the earth. 

Percy ran his fingertips over the scars along Luke’s back, the ones visible even with the tank top on. He carefully pulled the ripped fabric from Luke’s body and dropped it on the floor, then went back to tracing the scars. His touch made Luke’s skin quiver. Percy gently urged Luke to turn around so they were facing each other again.

Luke did, but he refused to look at Percy. He didn’t want to see the pity...or worse, satisfaction. 

Percy touched one of the diagonal scars. “Ladon,” he muttered. He moved to the delicate Y incision, a question in the tilt of his head. 

“Chiron. After Ladon,” Luke answered the unspoken question.

Percy hummed acknowledgement. “Thalia,” Percy said, tracing the horizontal scar and proving that he paid more attention than he let on. He fit his hands against each of the handprints branded into Luke’s skin, starting with his hip and stopping with the one over his heart. “And me.” 

“And you,” Luke echoed. His heart beat fast and he knew that Percy could feel it because his hand was against the brand directly over Luke’s heart. 

They stood in the semi-darkness, in the quiet and privacy. Outside, there were the sounds of the army taunting the girls and the girls taunting right back. Luke’s army wouldn’t pick a serious fight without orders. 

“Am I the reason for the scars on your back?” Percy asked, like he didn’t really want to know but had to. 

Luke nodded. 

“I’m sorry,” Percy whispered, voice full of feeling. He cupped Luke’s cheek, over yet another brand. “Close your eyes? I won’t hurt you.” 

Luke wouldn’t care if Percy did hurt him. Percy could uncap that sword and kill Luke on the spot and Luke would thank him. He closed his eyes. He expected death. He didn’t expect Percy’s lips against his, soft and tasting faintly of the ocean. 

“I’m sorry,” Percy said again and there was even more feeling packed into those two words than the first time he’d uttered them. Then he pulled back and dashed away, leaving Luke alone and vulnerable in the darkness. Shortly after Percy left their hideaway, chaos broke out.

Luke would have worried, but he heard the shocked voices of his army as Percy and the girls escaped. He touched his lips with his fingertips and wished that they were Percy’s lips against his. At least he got to kiss his soulmate one time before he died.


End file.
